Between the remains of the main course and the serving of dessert (cake and grapes, a sexy combination of creamy-sweet and tangy) tongues loosened, (when fed, men talk) the conversation at my dinner table filled with guests turned to the “10 most sexy women in Trinidad and Tobago.”

The attorney was telling us how it was done. A bunch of people, including him, got an e-mail from an Express columnist with a list of names of women. He was to please put down the names of the women in his order of preference. He was speaking of the intrepid, cutlass-witted columnist - BC Pires.

Odd, I said. I ran into BC just the other day, when I jokingly chided him for not including me. He replied I was “short-listed” and I repressed a humiliated unladylike snort, because who the hell wants to be short-listed for being sexy?  It’s like saying eating no-fat ice-cream.

On that occasion the feminist in me argued beauty is subjective, and the heroin-thin Cosmo women have no soul and less brain. But the fickle, floozy, short-listed woman in me explained it in another way to someone else: “If you’re picked it’s a great panel; if you’re not, its crappy - ask anyone from academic circles to beauty queens”.

My suggestion that we do a list of the 10 sexiest MEN in T&T made this hot evening even hotter.

Oddly, BC almost made it into our list, but in the last minute was replaced by Fr Clyde Harvey, since the panel felt we needed controversy in our list and Fr Harvey genuinely qualified, since he is a walking contradiction (complexity is appealing to women, since we see it as a sign of superior intelligence) with the fire of a revolutionary priest in the context of an established, ordered, hierarchical institution, that of the Catholic Church.

All panellists - an optometrist, journalist (self), three businessmen and their partners/wives, an urban planner and attorney - unanimously agreed murderers, no matter how sexy, wouldn’t make it, neither would insecure, controlling men who wear too much jewelry and perfume to compensate for having never read a classic in their lives.

Our methodology consisted of the following:

Suggest the name of anyone who pops into our heads and out of our mouths. Add him to the list after a broad-based consensus based on discussions along the lines of, “Yes, he’s a feast, a real dish!” or “No way! Too vain. He must spend at least an hour every day on carving those sideburns”, or “Yeah, put him in. Raw sex appeal”, or “Too sexist, and reeks of after-shave”, “Clearly insecure because he’s a bully”. (So if you’re vain, pompous, a bully, or reek of after-shave, know you are NOT sexy!).

We then established the criteria for picking the 10 sexiest men in Trinidad and Tobago:

Our list went up to 50 men and then we culled and culled down to the top 12. All men in present company, although eminently eligible, were excluded from the list. There are men who deserve an honourable mention, including George John and Ken Gordon (wickedly worldly and old world charm, respectively, but didn’t make the list because we already had a surfeit of older men); and Ralph Maraj (who could have made it in Bollywood if he had learned Hindi), but we had too many politicians.

The panel also agreed the sexiest thing about a man was when he used his power and testosterone to protect the weak, to be gentle to those smaller than himself, that a big heart was worth more than a big anything else.

This column’s list of the 12 sexiest men in Trinidad and Tobago:

12. Father Harvey

11. Rikki Jai

10. Al Rawi Faris

9.   Dr Michael Telemaque

8.   Reginald Armour

7.   Dwight Yorke

6.   David Rudder

5.   Machel Montano

4.   Emile Elias

3.   Gerald Yetming

2.   Wendell Mottley

1.   Basdeo Panday

Don’t knock our methodology - it’s called the social sciences.

Take a bow, Mr Prime Minister: Sexiest man in T&T.

Next Week: Why the panel’s list of the 10 sexist women has to be censured: The shameful truth about men.